Tourism returns with a trickle as Cayman prepares for border reopening

The Marriott Beach Resort has three overseas guests booked in for the night of 20 Nov. Just along Seven Mile Beach, the Westin has ten.

Cayman’s two largest private villa and condo rental companies, which collectively represent more than 150 properties across all three islands, have six bookings between them.

While the relaxing of quarantine restrictions from 20 Nov. has been viewed as “reopening day” for tourism in Cayman, the reality on the ground is that this is expected to be a slow recovery.

The doors are not so much being flung open, as being nudged ajar.

It’s enough to see a crack of light, after 20 months of bad news for hoteliers, business owners and their staff. But some believe the full recovery could still be more than a year away.

Days away from reopening, the primary concerns for hotels and villas is precisely what to tell their guests about the logistics of the multiple testing requirements.

In the longer term, concerns around airlift, the ability of children to travel and the remobilisation of staff, dominate the discussion among business-owners.

At the Marriott, general manager Hermes Cuello, is taking a positive approach. There are three guests arriving on 20 Nov. and a further 10 throughout the week. The picture, in terms of bookings, looks fairly bleak through the rest of the year, but is starting to pick up in the early part of 2022.

“The bookings are not significant, but the way we look at it is that this is progress,” he said.

“After two years bleeding, whatever progress we can make is positive.”
He said the resort had been able to bring concierge, pool and restaurant staff back to work and hoped to see an increase in bookings in the new year.

Airlift is the key barrier to significant tourism, but not the only one.
Tourists will be required to take lateral flow tests on day 2, 5 and 10 of their trip.

The requirement, along with questions around the need to quarantine should a traveller test positive, could make or break vacation decisions.

Demand is limited

Those stepping off the plane on ‘day one’ of reopening on 20 Nov. are likely those who need to get back to Cayman for personal reasons, says Jim Mauer, manager of the Westin.

He said the amount of tests and the lack of clarity around the practical application of the policy were still “quite restrictive” considering that all arriving visitors must be vaccinated and PCR tested as a condition of entry.

“This is a step in the right direction and we are excited to crawl before we can walk,” he said, noting that the Westin would likely need no more than 45 of its 343 hotel rooms, for both visitors and staycationers, in the first weeks of reopening.

“Once people know the requirements, we may see the door open a little more, but right now it is very limited,” he said.

He expects leisure business to pick up from March next year, but cautions that group bookings, which account for a large part of Cayman’s hotel guests, are unlikely to improve before next summer.

Local customers continue to be the biggest business for the hotel. The Remembrance Day holiday weekend was particularly busy.

“We did more business this past weekend than we will do for some time, even with travellers coming back.”

At the Kimpton Seafire Resort, the picture is similar.

Manager Steven Andre says he expects it to be a very slow ramp up.
“The important part is we are moving forward,” he said.

Villas and condos equally slow

Outside of the island’s major hotels, the private villa sector provides the greatest number of rooms.

Those businesses are also seeing slow uptake of bookings.

Jim Leavitt, general manager of Grand Cayman Villas and Condos, said only three of the businesses portfolio of 82 properties were booked for next week.

There are 91 reservations, comprising just over 500 guests, in the reservation book through Christmas.

He said testing was a significant hurdle for some guests.

Beyond the cost and inconvenience for holidaymakers, he said there was anxiety from prospective guests about leaving the relative security of a private villa to go into the community and get tested at a time when Cayman is experiencing significant transmission and is classed at the highest risk level by the US Centers for Disease Control.

In the longer term, Leavitt is hopeful that a joint proposal from his company and Cayman Villas to set up a satellite testing center at Frank Sound will get the go-ahead.

“We want to make this as easy and salable from a public relations perspective as possible to protect the Cayman Islands brand and reputation,” he said.

Despite those challenges, Leavitt said it was good to be back in business and believes that Cayman could ramp up quickly for a more sustained return of tourism once the practicalities of airlift are worked out.

Juliet Cumber-Forget, managing director of Cayman Villas, said the business was still seeing as many cancellations as new bookings.

Guests that cancelled cited a variety of reasons including the fact that not all in their party were vaccinated, there were children in the group, direct flights were cancelled, Cayman’s status as a COVID hot spot or the inconvenience of vaccine verification and testing requirements.

Cayman Villas has three reservations in the books from visitors for the opening week and 35 properties booked through Christmas – of which almost half are owners or resident staycations.

“Basically we have seen a ‘trickle’ of new overseas reservations for 20 November through to end of February 2022,” she added.

From that point, she expects things to pick up, as prospective visitors regain confidence that they can come to Cayman for an incident-free vacation.

“I would say it is going to take at least 12 to 18 months before we see a sustainable amount of tourism back here in Grand Cayman sadly,” she added.

CITA waiting for next steps

Cayman Islands Tourism Association president Marc Langevin said the projections for airlift into Cayman for the next six months were not likely to be significant enough to support a sustained return of tourism.

He said it was hard to see hotels achieving more than 30% occupancy until March next year at which point he believes 50% is a realistic target.
Langevin, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, believes it will be 2023 before the industry sees a return to normal.

The Ritz-Carlton is currently undergoing renovations and won’t open until 15 Dec., but Langevin does not expect to see many tourists in the opening few months.

“Right now I am trying to figure out how to save February and March.”
He said the hotel would reopen initially with a limited room capacity. He cited increased airlift, further easing of regulations, including removing the requirement for children to quarantine, and remobilisation of the workforce as the key barriers to the return of tourism.

He said the government focus on the logistics of reopening on 20 Nov. was understandable, but cautioned that decisions need to be made soon on the next steps in order to bring back flights, visitors and workers for the early part of next year.

“There is little attention being given right now to the decisions that need to be made to address those key issues for the next phase,” he added.
Langevin believes the industry – including airlines and travel agents – needs a 2-3 month time lag from when a decision is made in order to schedule flights or book guests.

Similarly, he said, hotels would need a similar time frame to recruit staff, particularly for restaurant kitchens and poolside jobs, that are hard to fill locally.

In that context, he said, key decisions needed to be made sooner rather than later in order for the trickle of returning tourists that begins this weekend to turn into a stream.